Russian Duma committee recommends rejecting bill on illegal gambling promotion penalties

A Russian State Duma committee with responsibility for criminal and administrative legislation has recommended rejecting a bill that would introduce new sanctions for covert promotion of illegal gambling. The committee's opinion was published on 21 October. The recommendation does not amount to a final rejection: the Duma has still to vote on the bill, and parliamentary examination remains open.

The bill is intended to address indirect forms of promotion of illegal gambling platforms, including practices that do not formally fall within the definition of advertising. Its explanatory report identifies several channels used to draw players to unauthorised operators: gambling specialist portals, affiliate programmes, film and television series sites, videos posted on social networks, and content produced by bloggers and entertainment figures. It also cites links to gambling platforms placed in pinned comments under videos and live streams during which winnings obtained through online gambling are shown.

The sanctions proposal is accompanied by a second bill that would introduce an explicit ban on disseminating information on the internet about illegal gambling and lotteries. The committee's negative opinion rests on the coordination between the two measures: according to the deputies, the wording used in the texts does not coincide, and the conduct for which penalties are proposed does not fully correspond to the behaviour prohibited by the other bill. The committee also found irregularities in the technical drafting of the amendments, which it considered not fully in line with the recommendations for drafting legislative texts.

The Russian government and the Supreme Court also submitted critical observations, and the measure did not obtain the support of two Federation Council committees, competent respectively for economic policy and for constitutional legislation. The issues flagged concern above all the legal coherence of the new provisions and the coordination between prohibitions and sanctions.